Covert US bid to boost Afghan rebel groups

President George Bush is pushing a secret insurgency in Afghanistan and is considering demands from the country's opposition Northern Alliance for $50m a month in funding to help fight the Taliban.

The president has approved a secret effort to help strengthen a number of different groups within Afghanistan as a key part of the US administration's aim to oust the regime it accuses of harbouring Osama bin Laden.

Word of the covert plan came as a deal was struck in Rome between representatives of the Northern Alliance and the former king of Afghanistan - 86-year old Mohammad Zahir Shah - which will see the establishment of a de facto government of the country.

Under the terms of the ground-breaking accord the two parties said a "Supreme Council for National Unity" would shortly convene a traditional grand assembly of Afghan leaders and elect a new head of state.

A new transitional government in exile would be put in place ahead of free elections once the Taliban was toppled. "I am convinced that the agreement we have reached today will be the start of a new era for Afghanistan," said Younus Qanooni, head of the Northern Alliance delegation.

The US hopes its military aid to the alliance will stir up resistance within the country, particularly within the Pashtun tribal groups in the south. However it is having to dovetail that money with some calming measures for Pakistan.

It has authorised $100m in new relief aid for Afghan refugees in a bid to ease resentment in Pakistan which is struggling to cope with the crisis of thousands of Afghan refugees attempting to flee across the border.

Officials are considering air-dropping food as well as anti-Taliban propaganda into Afghanistan, though there is concern that any dropped food and aid would get into the hands of the Taliban.

The Northern Alliance is said to have suggested to the US that it needs a wide range of military equipment, including tanks, helicopters, armoured personnel carriers and artillery.

Haron Amin, its representative in Washington, said: "What we are saying is deploy [US] special forces in coordination with our forces on the ground, make fast moves, secure certain spots and then expand our territories."

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, had told NBC on Sunday: "There's no question but that there are any number of people in Afghanistan, tribes in the south, the Northern Alliance in the north, that oppose the Taliban. And clearly we need to recognise the value they bring to this anti-terrorist, anti-Taliban effort and where appropriate, find ways to assist them."

The Northern Alliance is the main force still fighting the Taliban regime but it controls less than 10% of Afghan territory. Mr Amin said the Northern Alliance wanted to see a "free Afghanistan" and would support the exiled king Zahir Shah, 86, as a "unifying figurehead".

"You can go ahead and hunt down Osama bin Laden and roll back the Taliban," he said. "But if you cannot create the kind of responsible government that is broad-based and fully representative and multi-ethnic, and a government that is going to be respected by its neighbours as well as a government that will live by international law, you're going to make conditions conducive to perpetrators to do the same sort of heinous crimes that they've committed on September 11."

In Rome the ex-king's representative, Abdul Sattar Sirat, told a news conference: "Within one or two weeks of its inception, the council will be the only legitimate body to take decisions relative to Afghanistan. We must be ready if there are drastic changes in Afghanistan's political scene to resolve our problems and fill the power vacuum."

An adviser to the ex-king said all or part of the supreme council would probably meet in Rome before the end of October. It would have around 120 members representing Afghanistan's many ethnic, tribal and religious groups.

The US has so far been treading carefully because of warnings from Pakistan that siding solely with the Northern Alliance - made up largely of Tajik, Uzbek and other minorities - could cause ethnic problems because it does not represent the largest part of the Afghani population, the Pashtun.

The UN national security council has drafted a "guidance" which describes the basis for ousting the Taliban. It charges that the Taliban is allied with terrorists, has repressed the Afghan population, had interfered with the delivery of aid and was not the legitimate ruler of the nation.

Intelligence reports suggest the Taliban are starting to crumble. The Northern Alliance has claimed that as many as 350 Taliban troops had switched sides.

A Taliban spokesman has admitted that troops in the Laghman region had defected but said that their leader, Mohamed Suleman, had defected because he was wanted by the Taliban for unspecified "issues".